Apr 3 2013

Tracey Jackson

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Patience

CALM IN THE MIDST OF CHAOS

CALM IN THE MIDST OF CHAOS

We are all working on calming down; at least I’m assuming we are. I know I am.  I’m trying to minimize those cortisol surging moments, many of which I bring on myself.

It’s easy being calm in when all is smooth and serene, It’s easy being calm when the world isn’t yelling in your ear.   But how about in the midst of the nerve wracking, hand ringing, sometimes almost rage inducing life scenarios?

I’m not talking about the big stuff. In a crisis I am a champ. Really, in an earthquake or a fire, I’m your girl.  On the way to hospital in an ambulance, call me. But stuck in traffic and late for an appointment, the Internet conking out or face to face with idiocy of bureaucracy I fall apart or start to lose it.

So today I had a breakthrough – I was totally calm in the face of chaos. I have been working on it, using our affirmations in cases where normally I might revert to my Princess Snarky mood.

Though I am a New York resident for 13 years I have always kept my California drivers license. I have done this for many reasons, I didn’t want to lose the identity, I didn’t want to take the test and honestly California kept renewing it through the mail. And if I lost it, which I have I, am out there enough I would make an appointment and go into the DMV and get it replaced. Then I found out it was illegal, that you were supposed to turn your old one in thirty days after you moved. OK, so I was 12 years and 11 months behind.

I also to be honest didn’t want to deal with the lines.

Then I found out you needed a Social Security card to get a new license.  All of ours were stolen in a big robbery we had seven years ago. We never bothered to replace them; there was never a reason.

I put that off a long time too. Lines. Giving up my morning or an afternoon. Hey, I’m busy.  But the time had come; my California license expires on my birthday in May. I could use my mom’s address, I could keep this going, but I decided to be an honest New Yorker. So, three weeks ago I devoted a morning to getting a new Social Security card. It was a bit tedious, but no biggie. It arrived last week, no more excuses – DMV next.

Today was the day. I gave up the gym, gave up the morning and went to the DMV. See, here they have one office in Manhattan for five million people.  The lines are horrendous. Last night I looked at my new SS card only to see they had left the E out of Tracey. I was Tracy Jackson. My husband felt it was no problem,  he always says that. I felt it could be, it didn’t match the other twelve forms of ID I had gathered. I had a bad feeling they might throw me out.

I got to the DMV as they opened, lines were out the door just to get in the elevator. OK, this was why I avoided it for so long. It was cool, stay in the moment. This is life.

Every one was hysterical about something. A girl from Minnesota had been in line for nine hours the day before only to be turned away as they were closing. Would today end the same way?  Would it.  She was in front of me.  Keep calm; it’s not the end of the world. A guy next to her kept calling his wife, what should he do about organ donation? I told him if he donated them now he might be able to jump the line.

Then a guy who was very loud and pushy went right up to an clerk and said he was a NY MET and he had to get to the game for warm. They believed him and  let him go right to the front of the line. He was so not a MET.

Now the old me would have had a fit.  I would have stormed up  to the head of the department and demanded justice. The new me, thought OK, it’s not fair, but who cares. So he’s one person in a line of 90.  But the girl from Minnesota was channeling the old me and did it for all of us. Which resulted in nothing except she got herself so worked up I thought she was going to pass out. Then she started fretting about the traffic in LA where she is moving with her NY license.

Two hours – it was finally my turn. I showed the guy my SS card, he told me to leave. Just leave. No hope. No how.  No way.

I showed him every certificate of my existence I had. Didn’t matter, there was no E in Tracy this made me a totally different person.

The old me would have demanded to speak to the head of the dept. who believed the deranged guy (who got tossed out) was a MET. The old me would have argued, cajoled, gotten so worked up I would have had an asthma attack. But what was the point?

I took a deep breath and thought OK I can make this into the most difficult of mornings, or I can go along for the ride.

I got out in the sun and said, what is there to be grateful for here,

I was grateful. I had nowhere to be and could go back down to the Social Security. I was grateful I had the $20.00 for a cab and could do email on the way.

I decided instead of taking the position that I had wasted an entire morning dealing with this crap and I would have to come back and do it all again, that this is life.

This is the stuff our lives are made of.  I’m not losing a morning, or a day, I’m actually spending time doing something that needs to be done for me to live in the world.  That in it’s own way is as important as working or exercising or doing something that gives me pleasure. It was all OK. I was calm in the chaos of my day. And tonight instead of bitching and moaning about how the world put me out, and made my day complicated – I made dinner, poured a glass of wine (I don’t have an alcoholic issue for those who wondered) and thought, Wow, I actually had a great day. A good day indeed. I made another step in my own progress.

 

Tracey Jackson

Tracey Jackson is a screenwriter and blogger at traceyjacksononline.com. Her book Gratitude and Trust is now available.